Dr. Wendy L. Schultz discusses horizon scanning as an essential tool for foresight activities that identifies emerging issues and changes. However, scanning faces challenges in an evidence-based policy environment due to contradictions between the subjective, tentative nature of scanning and political and scientific desires for objective, authoritative conclusions. Various techniques like causal layered analysis, integral futures, and spiral dynamics can help overcome biases and validate scan findings from diverse sources to better identify surprises and alternatives for policymaking.
CLA is a post-structural futures method developed by Sohail Inayatullah. This slidedeck presents a brief intro with examples for use in facilitation and discussion.
"Blowing the Cobwebs Off Your Mind" BootcampWendy Schultz
A futures research and foresight methods workshop by SAMI Consulting, Laurie Young, and Infinite Futures - focus on patterns of change over time, using past timelines, Three Horizons, and the Gartner Hype Cycle, and age cohort analysis; CLA; Verge; and Futures Wheels.
Quick tools for thinking about future impacts of change: 'for there is nothin...Wendy Schultz
The presentation slides - interspersed with my 'speaking notes' slides - from my keynote panel presentation at ICT 2013 in Vilnius on 7 November 2013. Other panellists described emerging changes; I was asked to help people think about the impacts and implications of those changes, and so offered quick versions of the Three Horizons, Futures Wheels and Manoa Scenario Building, Verge, and Causal Layered Analysis - in 15 minutes.
Houston Spring 2016 : Crowdsourcing Blockchain ScenariosWendy Schultz
A presentation to the University of Houston spring futures gathering 2016 on using Sensemaker to crowdsource mini-scenarios about potential future uses for blockchain technologies.
Crazy Futures aka Rx for Leadership Scotomas (why plausibility is maladaptive)Wendy Schultz
Short slidedeck on overcoming mental boundaries and expanding conceptual horizons in considering what possible futures may emerge, as a means to avoiding decision blindspots and black elephants / black swans.
CLA is a post-structural futures method developed by Sohail Inayatullah. This slidedeck presents a brief intro with examples for use in facilitation and discussion.
"Blowing the Cobwebs Off Your Mind" BootcampWendy Schultz
A futures research and foresight methods workshop by SAMI Consulting, Laurie Young, and Infinite Futures - focus on patterns of change over time, using past timelines, Three Horizons, and the Gartner Hype Cycle, and age cohort analysis; CLA; Verge; and Futures Wheels.
Quick tools for thinking about future impacts of change: 'for there is nothin...Wendy Schultz
The presentation slides - interspersed with my 'speaking notes' slides - from my keynote panel presentation at ICT 2013 in Vilnius on 7 November 2013. Other panellists described emerging changes; I was asked to help people think about the impacts and implications of those changes, and so offered quick versions of the Three Horizons, Futures Wheels and Manoa Scenario Building, Verge, and Causal Layered Analysis - in 15 minutes.
Houston Spring 2016 : Crowdsourcing Blockchain ScenariosWendy Schultz
A presentation to the University of Houston spring futures gathering 2016 on using Sensemaker to crowdsource mini-scenarios about potential future uses for blockchain technologies.
Crazy Futures aka Rx for Leadership Scotomas (why plausibility is maladaptive)Wendy Schultz
Short slidedeck on overcoming mental boundaries and expanding conceptual horizons in considering what possible futures may emerge, as a means to avoiding decision blindspots and black elephants / black swans.
Three Horizons 18 Sept 2013 - Basic IntroductionWendy Schultz
Basic introduction to working with past timelines and the Three Horizons Framework, as presented at the 'Blowing the Cobwebs Off Your Mind' Three Horizons / Futures Thinking Bootcamp, 18-19 September 2013, by Wendy Schultz
ORI BAM Warwick Scenarios 2018 Crowdsourcing Harman's FanWendy Schultz
Describing a distributed, asynchronous method for identifying multiple narrative paths to alternative futures, using the Futurescaper software platform as a way to generate Harman's Fan scenario explorations.
Future Outlook on Urban CompetitivenessWendy Schultz
The narrative of my 22 June 2010 presentation to the Global Innovation Forum in Seoul, sponsored by the Korea Economic Daily. Please refer to PDF of slidedeck, above.
How to grapple with science advice in ideological conflictsSciAdvice14
Heather Douglas of the Institute for Science, Society and Policy at the University of Ottawa on grappling with science advice in ideological conflicts.
Cause And Effect Of Air Pollution Essay.pdfApril Lynn
(DOC) Pollution - Cause and Effect Essay | Nine Co - Academia.edu. What Are Main Causes Of Air Pollution. 002 Cause And Effect Essay On Pollution Air Causes Effects Solutions .... Narrative Essay: Causes of pollution essay. Effect of Air Pollution on Plants and Animals | Prana Air. Air pollution essay writing diagram - homeworktidy.x.fc2.com. Causes of Air Pollution Essay - Pippa Lawrence. School Essay: Air pollution essay. ️ Essay about air pollution cause and effect. Pollution causes and .... Cause and effect of air pollution essay – The Friary School. Essays about air pollution causes effects - writefiction581.web.fc2.com. Pollution Essay | Pollution | Air Pollution. School Essay: Causes of air pollution essay. Write An Essay On Air Pollution - Essay on Air Pollution: Causes .... Air Pollution Essay | Air Pollution | Atmosphere Of Earth.
"The New Responsibility Paradigm: Implications for Strategic Competitiveness"Art Stewart, MPM
Snapshot of my "Futurist Lecture Series" presentation at the 2010 annual conference of the World Future Society in Boston. This PDF has a few sample slides. Want more? Invite me to present!
Melissa Leach - Imagining and negotiating pathways in an age of anxiety and i...STEPS Centre
Talk by Melissa Leach, STEPS Director, at the conference ‘Modelling Futures: Understanding risk and uncertainty’ on 28-30 September.
http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1133
Top of FormPresentation Research in the Social SciencesSoc.docxedwardmarivel
Top of Form
Presentation
Research in the Social Sciences
Social science, including academic subjects such as criminal justice and homeland security, focuses on studying human interaction between individuals, groups, or societies. Social science is about questioning the world around you by examining cultures, societies, economies, politics, behaviors, and any assortment of social interaction. This range in scope is emphasized by a number of academic disciplines such as anthropology, political science, and sociology. Researchers within social science fields consider how individual or group actions impact their society.
Compare, for a moment, social sciences to the physical sciences such as physics or biology. In studying physics, one can grasp how an aircraft can stay in the air. A physicist recognizes the physical forces that impact the aircraft’s flight and can predict what impact these elements will have on the aircraft's continued operation. In understanding the science behind flight, physicists can also estimate or predict what conditions will negatively impact a journey. The aircraft’s design, improvements, and success are all founded on proven mathematical principles. There are also mechanical principles that determine how it must be maintained, fueled, and operated. There are engineering designs with elements that can be measured, tested, and proven reliable. With the knowledge and information these hard sciences provide, practitioners and researchers alike can make better predictions about what designs, models, or activities will be successful.
Meanwhile, society has no rules to explain why things may or may not happen. All who are a part of a society represent living, dynamic organisms. There is form and function in a society to a degree, yet the whole can theoretically be impacted by any single element. Societies and social relationships maintain customs, accepted norms, traditions, economic exchanges, and communications within various social constructs. Social sciences examine countless activities occurring in an ever-changing environment.
By extension, factors that impact an individual’s response to phenomena may be infinite. For example, in studying homeland security, you might consider the elements of prevention, preparation, mitigation, and response in regard to natural disasters. Researchers consider why individuals choose not to evacuate in advance of a known and deadly hurricane. In asking people about their reasons, researchers select individuals who refused to evacuate before a hurricane arrived. In doing so, they might find that there are dozens of possible answers or combinations of answers. Potential answers such as the following are among the answers a survey might reveal:
· Having no transportation
· Fearing their homes will be looted
· Believing the storm’s intensity was exaggerated
· Not comprehending what a hurricane can potentially do to them
· Dealing with many storms in the past
· Unwilling to leave pets or li ...
Slides for Week 2 of DPC's Fall 2020 section of PUAD 6289 Research Design. Topics include epistemic traditions, critical (theory) research, and research ethics. Programs of Public Affairs, Dept of Political Science, University of Utah.
Who to believe: How epistemic cognition can inform science communication (key...Simon Knight
Who to believe? How epistemic cognition can inform science communication
Two patients with the same condition decide to research possible treatments. They encounter multiple sources, from experts and others, each with different – sometimes contradictory – information. Depending on whom they believe and how they integrate these claims, the patients may make radically different decisions. These situations are commonplace in everyday life, from medical choices, to our voting decisions. How do we understand these differences, and support people in making the best decisions?
Epistemic cognition provides one lens onto this problem. Epistemic cognition is the study of how people think about the justification, source, complexity, and certainty of knowledge. When we evaluate evidence, think about where and when it applies, and connect claims to build models, we engage our epistemic cognition. Understanding how people navigate their own, and others’ knowledge is one of the most pressing social issues of our time in order to develop a sustainable society. I’ll draw on research in epistemic cognition, and my own research on how people search for and talk about evidence, to flag key implications of epistemic cognition research for science communication.
Meditations on the 100th anniversary of the Halifax, Nova Scotia, ship explosion, which gave rise to the first concerted social study of disaster and started a century of academic work in this field. Where do we 'disasterologists' come from and where are we going in the next century of our work?
From seminar arranged by the EU FP Project Understanding the Relationship between Knowledge and Competitiveness in the Enlarging European Union” and the Research Council of Norway February 1 2008.
Three Horizons 18 Sept 2013 - Basic IntroductionWendy Schultz
Basic introduction to working with past timelines and the Three Horizons Framework, as presented at the 'Blowing the Cobwebs Off Your Mind' Three Horizons / Futures Thinking Bootcamp, 18-19 September 2013, by Wendy Schultz
ORI BAM Warwick Scenarios 2018 Crowdsourcing Harman's FanWendy Schultz
Describing a distributed, asynchronous method for identifying multiple narrative paths to alternative futures, using the Futurescaper software platform as a way to generate Harman's Fan scenario explorations.
Future Outlook on Urban CompetitivenessWendy Schultz
The narrative of my 22 June 2010 presentation to the Global Innovation Forum in Seoul, sponsored by the Korea Economic Daily. Please refer to PDF of slidedeck, above.
How to grapple with science advice in ideological conflictsSciAdvice14
Heather Douglas of the Institute for Science, Society and Policy at the University of Ottawa on grappling with science advice in ideological conflicts.
Cause And Effect Of Air Pollution Essay.pdfApril Lynn
(DOC) Pollution - Cause and Effect Essay | Nine Co - Academia.edu. What Are Main Causes Of Air Pollution. 002 Cause And Effect Essay On Pollution Air Causes Effects Solutions .... Narrative Essay: Causes of pollution essay. Effect of Air Pollution on Plants and Animals | Prana Air. Air pollution essay writing diagram - homeworktidy.x.fc2.com. Causes of Air Pollution Essay - Pippa Lawrence. School Essay: Air pollution essay. ️ Essay about air pollution cause and effect. Pollution causes and .... Cause and effect of air pollution essay – The Friary School. Essays about air pollution causes effects - writefiction581.web.fc2.com. Pollution Essay | Pollution | Air Pollution. School Essay: Causes of air pollution essay. Write An Essay On Air Pollution - Essay on Air Pollution: Causes .... Air Pollution Essay | Air Pollution | Atmosphere Of Earth.
"The New Responsibility Paradigm: Implications for Strategic Competitiveness"Art Stewart, MPM
Snapshot of my "Futurist Lecture Series" presentation at the 2010 annual conference of the World Future Society in Boston. This PDF has a few sample slides. Want more? Invite me to present!
Melissa Leach - Imagining and negotiating pathways in an age of anxiety and i...STEPS Centre
Talk by Melissa Leach, STEPS Director, at the conference ‘Modelling Futures: Understanding risk and uncertainty’ on 28-30 September.
http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/1133
Top of FormPresentation Research in the Social SciencesSoc.docxedwardmarivel
Top of Form
Presentation
Research in the Social Sciences
Social science, including academic subjects such as criminal justice and homeland security, focuses on studying human interaction between individuals, groups, or societies. Social science is about questioning the world around you by examining cultures, societies, economies, politics, behaviors, and any assortment of social interaction. This range in scope is emphasized by a number of academic disciplines such as anthropology, political science, and sociology. Researchers within social science fields consider how individual or group actions impact their society.
Compare, for a moment, social sciences to the physical sciences such as physics or biology. In studying physics, one can grasp how an aircraft can stay in the air. A physicist recognizes the physical forces that impact the aircraft’s flight and can predict what impact these elements will have on the aircraft's continued operation. In understanding the science behind flight, physicists can also estimate or predict what conditions will negatively impact a journey. The aircraft’s design, improvements, and success are all founded on proven mathematical principles. There are also mechanical principles that determine how it must be maintained, fueled, and operated. There are engineering designs with elements that can be measured, tested, and proven reliable. With the knowledge and information these hard sciences provide, practitioners and researchers alike can make better predictions about what designs, models, or activities will be successful.
Meanwhile, society has no rules to explain why things may or may not happen. All who are a part of a society represent living, dynamic organisms. There is form and function in a society to a degree, yet the whole can theoretically be impacted by any single element. Societies and social relationships maintain customs, accepted norms, traditions, economic exchanges, and communications within various social constructs. Social sciences examine countless activities occurring in an ever-changing environment.
By extension, factors that impact an individual’s response to phenomena may be infinite. For example, in studying homeland security, you might consider the elements of prevention, preparation, mitigation, and response in regard to natural disasters. Researchers consider why individuals choose not to evacuate in advance of a known and deadly hurricane. In asking people about their reasons, researchers select individuals who refused to evacuate before a hurricane arrived. In doing so, they might find that there are dozens of possible answers or combinations of answers. Potential answers such as the following are among the answers a survey might reveal:
· Having no transportation
· Fearing their homes will be looted
· Believing the storm’s intensity was exaggerated
· Not comprehending what a hurricane can potentially do to them
· Dealing with many storms in the past
· Unwilling to leave pets or li ...
Slides for Week 2 of DPC's Fall 2020 section of PUAD 6289 Research Design. Topics include epistemic traditions, critical (theory) research, and research ethics. Programs of Public Affairs, Dept of Political Science, University of Utah.
Who to believe: How epistemic cognition can inform science communication (key...Simon Knight
Who to believe? How epistemic cognition can inform science communication
Two patients with the same condition decide to research possible treatments. They encounter multiple sources, from experts and others, each with different – sometimes contradictory – information. Depending on whom they believe and how they integrate these claims, the patients may make radically different decisions. These situations are commonplace in everyday life, from medical choices, to our voting decisions. How do we understand these differences, and support people in making the best decisions?
Epistemic cognition provides one lens onto this problem. Epistemic cognition is the study of how people think about the justification, source, complexity, and certainty of knowledge. When we evaluate evidence, think about where and when it applies, and connect claims to build models, we engage our epistemic cognition. Understanding how people navigate their own, and others’ knowledge is one of the most pressing social issues of our time in order to develop a sustainable society. I’ll draw on research in epistemic cognition, and my own research on how people search for and talk about evidence, to flag key implications of epistemic cognition research for science communication.
Meditations on the 100th anniversary of the Halifax, Nova Scotia, ship explosion, which gave rise to the first concerted social study of disaster and started a century of academic work in this field. Where do we 'disasterologists' come from and where are we going in the next century of our work?
From seminar arranged by the EU FP Project Understanding the Relationship between Knowledge and Competitiveness in the Enlarging European Union” and the Research Council of Norway February 1 2008.
Lectures: Scientists & Advocacy / Models of Science CommunicationMatthew Nisbet
Slides from class lectures and discussion in the American University course COM 589: "Communication, Culture and the Environment," Spring 2014.
http://climateshiftproject.org/com-589-communication-culture-and-the-environment-spring-2014/
WHO Foresight Approaches in Public Health.pdfWendy Schultz
Suggestions for expanding futures research and foresight capabilities in an organization, with an emphasis on broad participation by stakeholders; includes examples of multiple futures methods and linked processes.
Further exploration of the intersection of our models of time (eg, the futures cone) with chaos theory, complexity theory, images of the future and archetypes, and postnormal times theory.
Crazy Futures I an exploration on the necessity of pushing your thinking pas...Wendy Schultz
Don't merely consider what you think is plausible - recognise that you may not have the whole story on emerging changes, and that what's emerging may shatter the bounds of what's currently 'plausible'. Get creative, test assumptions, test values and worldviews.
"It's Chaos Turtles All the Way Down" - presentation for the Global Foresight...Wendy Schultz
An exploration of the tensions of goal-based, visions-based, and emergence-based futures work, an update on the futures cone, and some new turbulence methods mash-ups.
A brief history and description of visioning tools.Wendy Schultz
This starts with the little building a vision mosaic interactive exercise, and ends with the shared joys problem-to-vision exercise. What the slidedeck doesn't note is that we posted the vision detail cards from the first exercise, and clustered them thematically to let a more coherent structure for the vision emerge.
A fun think piece on possible futures for AI and its potential range of relationships with humanity - written in response to a request by editors at Critical Muslim to provide an AI-focussed version of their regular feature, "The List." Thanks to Zia Sardar.
Museum mash-up, or vectors of visioningWendy Schultz
Describes a participatory engagement during the Design Develop Transform event in Antwerp, that combined multiple interactive futures methods: Manoa scenario building, the Verge General Practice Framework for Futures, the Postcards exercise, and Lego Serious Play. Participants explored possible long-range futures for museums and art.
Melding machine learning and participatory foresightWendy Schultz
Describes a participatory process to help experts teach an algorithm to forecast possible futures for jobs and skills in the USA and the UK. Began with scanning data and asked participants to locate those emerging changes onto a map of a generic city and discuss the various impacts. This was followed by scoring how those changes would affect increase or decrease of certain jobs and skills in future labour markets; the scores were input into the algorithm to teach it. The process was iterative.
Tick TOCS Tick TOCS - channeling change through theory into scenariosWendy Schultz
Describes an original scenario-building method used to explore futures for education, based on combining scanning output with specific social change theories. The social change theories provided logical narrative arcs to evolve different futures from starting points in the present.
Crazy Futures: Why Plausibility is MaladaptiveWendy Schultz
Explores how images of the future are perceived and categorized, and how the discipline itself uses 'plausibility' as an evaluative criterion - and why that may be a mistake.
A provocation for the Association of Professional Futurists' Virtual Gathering, 15 September 2017 exploring what is populism in an age when extraordinary is ordinary.
An overview of key activities in a complete futures / foresight study, with a 'shopper's guide' to relevant tools and methods to suit each activity. Use it to compose an integrated futures research project, soup to nuts.
Collecting stories about future uses of blockchain technologyWendy Schultz
This slidedeck briefly introduces blockchain technology and then requests readers to share a scenario - a story of a possible future - of possible uses for blockchain tech in the future. The stories can be shared on Sensemaker, and the slidedeck gives a step-by-step demo of how that would work. The deck then lists possible future users as prompts for your imaginative exploration of how blockchain technology might affect people in all walks of life and sectors.
World Future Society 2015 Professional Members ForumWendy Schultz
Slidedeck on the 2015 WFS Professional Members Forum "Software Sandbox" morning session, presented by Dr Wendy Schultz, Infinite Futures, and Dr Richard Lum, Vision Foresight Strategy.
World Future Society 2015 Professional Members Forum
Cultural Contradictions of Scanning in an Evidence-based Policy Environment
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4. CHANGE trends, drivers, emerging issues + - x % extrapolate, assess impacts scenario 1 scenario 2 scenario 3 scenario 4 scenario n STRATEGIES build on positives, counter negatives Scanning is the essential feedstock for all subsequent foresight activities: VISION - goals, values -
5. The map isn’t the territory, Navigational charts vs. radar: you need both. because the territory is dynamic.
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8. Change: issue life-cycle. WILDCARD!! TIME number of cases; degree of public awareness local; few cases; emerging issues global; multiple dispersed cases; trends and megatrends scientists; artists; radicals; mystics specialists’ journals and websites layperson’s magazines, websites, documentaries newspapers, news magazines government institutions Mapping a trend’s diffusion into public awareness from its starting point as an emerging issue of change. adapted from Graham Molitor
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17. Integral Futures: Four Quadrants Evidence-based Policy Scanning Data Collection Comfort Zone measurable interpreted Individual Collective Interior Exterior BEHAVIORAL SOCIAL INTENTIONAL CULTURAL Subjective Inter-Subjective Objective Inter-Objective “ I” “ WE” “ IT” “ ITS”
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19. Causes Metaphors and Myths Problem Social, Economic, Cultural Discourse Analysis: culture, values, language, postmodernisms, Spiral dynamics memes (alternatives) Myth/Metaphor Analysis: Jungian archetypes, ancient bedrock stories, gut level responses, emotional responses, visual images - may not be words for it (visioning) Worldview The “Litany”: Official public description of issue observational: events, trends, diagnosed problems, media spin, opinions, policy; visible and audible; unconnected (scanning) Social Science Analysis: Short-term historical facts start connecting; systems analysis, feedback interconnections, technical explanations, social analysis, policy analysis (systems) Sources: R. Slaughter, “Integral Operating System,” World Future Society, July 2003, drawing on Sohail Inayatullah; Dennis List, “3 Maps of the Future,” July 18, 2003; Andy Hines, UH-Clear Lake, 2006. Continuous Years Societal/Civilizational Decades Time Scale of Change
20. Using CLA to create alternative scenarios / visions: CHANGE! Identify the litany: current conditions & events. Analyze the causes: interrelationships, systems. Explore the worldview: values and cultural icons. Unveil the myths/metaphors: archetypes, emotions. Analyse down, identifying alternative litanies, causes, worldviews, and myths: create change by choosing alternatives as you surface.
24. The processes and technology through which we create goods & services The goods & services we create, and the ways in which we aquire and use them Social structures & relationships which link people and organizations The concepts, ideas and paradigms we use to define the world around us The technologies used to connect people, places and things EthnoFutures Scanning Framework
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27. Thank you! Dr. Wendy L. Schultz Infinite Futures: foresight research and training [email_address] TEL: +44-(0)1865-284377 FAX: +44-(0)1865-274125 Skype: wendyinfutures
Editor's Notes
This presentation draws on both theoretical and practical knowledge: the conceptual foundations of futures research in emerging issues analysis and systems thinking; and my past four years’ experience designing and implementing horizon scanning (environmental scanning) databases for use in several United Kingdom government agencies. It focusses on detecting early emergence of potentially disruptive change, as key to creating proactive policies and strategies, and highlights the constraints, biases, and filters that prevent perception of emerging change.
Why engage in horizon scanning? Generally, of course, it helps us hone our awareness of emerging change, and the changing context for policy. But its key role is as feedstock for all subsequent foresight and strategic activities: impact assessment, scenario thinking, vision articulation, and strategy formulation.
Trends -- data about change encompassing enough observations for statistical significance -- when mature may be considered conditions of the operating environment that planning should already have taken into account. Globalisation is an example: it has been widely recognised for some time, and the basket of trends which constitute this driver are well documented. It should be on the navigational map. Ongoing environmental scanning acts as radar / sonar, identifying new elements in the territory which have either arisen since the map was drawn, or which are in motion. The access of Chinese teen-agers to broadband Internet -- including the conditions of that access (eg., Google, Yahoo censoring technologies) and the uses to which they are putting that access -- is an example of an emerging issue which is dynamically evolving.
For an informative look at some of the core methods contributing to the development of horizon scanning, see Trudi Lang’s essay, “An Overview of Four Futures Methodologies,” available online here: http://www.futures.hawaii.edu/j7/LANG.html.
This ‘gold standard’ is very broad; Chun Wei Choo, University of Toronto, presents a more detailed definition of scanning, dividing it into four distinct modes, in his essay, “Environmental scanning as information seeking and organizational learning,” Information Research , Vol. 7, No.1, October 2001, available here: http://informationr.net/ir/7-1/paper112.html.
This classic diagram depicts the life cycle of a change, from emerging issue to full-blown trend, both in terms of number of observable cases, and in terms of public awareness. Note that perceiving weak signals of change requires monitoring publications and activities on the far lower left end of the curve: specialist and fringe publications, blogs, conferences, media output. In epidemiological terms, we are looking for “patient zero.” A robust scanning strategy will monitor change all along this curve, and discriminate between the uses and usefulness of data emerging from different points of the curve. As a change matures, more and more data points are available with which to analyse it: we can speak of the change as a variable which is displaying a trend in some direction. When a change is just emerging, and only a few data points exist with which to characterise it, we can only analyse it via a case study approach. Mark Justman’s set of on-line essays, “Emerging Issues Scanning Taxonomy | Getting a Handle on the Fringe,” speaks to the difficulties of researching down the curve, and offers some strategies for scanning practice. Available online at http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/barchester/1341/emerging.htm.
How do we choose and document scan sources to ensure we spot weak signals of potentially disruptive or surprising change? In science and technology, we look for sources that those communities themselves use to announce news. For changes on the social and cultural fringe, we look for voices that express values and ideas bubbling among artists and youth (as an example). Unfortunately, intuitive recognition of a source as useful is not a transferable decision rule. So, in the best tradition of expert systems analyses, we need to ask ourselves what we are actually doing when we choose sources. To which the shortest possible answer is probably, “identifying opinion leaders.” Because our current social construction grants credibility to adventuring within formal structures, such as science, we label those opinion leaders “experts.” As innovative social and cultural ideas and behaviors challenge the status quo with the potential for transformation, they are generally marginalized – hence the usual scanning label of “fringe” for sources on emerging issues among youth, artists, social movements, the underclass, etc. Also, bear in mind that dissenting scientific opinion – which can potentially lead to revolutionary shifts in scientific paradigm, a la Thomas Kuhn – is often treated harshly; scientific dissenters are often stigmatized as “cranks.” Their work also needs tracking, if cautiously.
The left-hand list specifies criteria used to establish the credibility of facts and patterns of present observations that are cited as evidence in policy formulation and decision-making. A cultural contradiction arises because useful environmental scan “hits” often register on the opposite end of the continua these criteria represent. Any emerging issue unusual enough to be useful will probably lack apparent credibility; it will be difficult to document, as only one or two cases of the change may yet exist; it will emerge from marginalized populations, and be noticed initially by fringe sources; as emerging issues are by definition only one or two cases, they are also by definition statistically insignificant; (continued on next slide…)
the data will vary widely, converging over time only if the emerging issue matures into a trend; not only will consensus be lacking, but experts will often violently attack reports of emerging issues of change, as they represent challenges to current paradigms and structures of expertise, power, and entitlement; emerging issues of change often challenge previous theoretical structures and necessitate the construction of new theories; and the most interesting new change emerges where disciplines converge and clash. As the impacts ripple out across all the systems of reality, emerging changes and their impacts require a multi-disciplinary analytic perspective. Scanning specifically – and foresight generally – can contribute to risk, threat, and vulnerability assessment as well as opportunity management, but will face resistance in an evidence-based policy environment for these reasons. Clearly articulated strategies to validate both scan sources and scan data can increase its acceptance.
What would be measurable or documentable attributes that would help us distinguish among expert, popular, or fringe sources, and that would establish sources’ credibility as opinion leaders for their communities of interest? High numbers of citations by members of the community: for science documents, literally the extent to which they are cited; for popular media, their distribution; for “fringe” literature, the “buzz,” measurable also by popularity within their target audience and, in the case of blogs, their ranking by links and hits. Is the source therefore credible as an opinion leader for that community? Market niche: to whom is the source targeted ? The Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine are targeted to professionals in medical research; New Scientist is targeted to scientific professionals and decision-makers, as well as interested laypeople; Discovery is targeted entirely to interested laypeople and students. Is that documentable, e.g., by reference to mission statements or self-descriptions? Distribution : does distribution data, or access data (in the case of websources / infofeeds) demonstrate widespread use by members of the source’s target audience / community of interest? This would to some extent duplicate, and therefore corroborate, the citations variable, above. Media : the medium of information distribution itself might help distinguish among expert, fringe, and popular, in terms of print journal, professional association newsletter, tabloid, etc. What other / better observable descriptors might help us formally document sources as best choices for scanning research?
We have identified sources; scanned them for trend data and signals of emerging change, organised and annotated them, and now need to consider which are the most important: when engaged in scanning as part of evidence-based policy-making, we must have strategies for validating the data, especially “weak signal” data, which may be sparse. Three strategies can aid validation: Confirmation , or accruing multiple citations -- scanning is meant to be an ongoing process, a monitoring of emerging change as more and more cases occur. Thus accruing evidence from a variety of sources of multiple occurrences validates the existence of a change, and indicates the direction of the emerging trend. Convergence , or emerging scientific consensus -- truly transformational weak signals will challenge current scientific paradigms. As more data is available, however, researchers will begin to discard some of the explanations the challenge provoked, and come to agree on a new paradigm. The past thirty years’ history of the scientific dialogue regarding climate change illustrates this. Parallax , or acquiring “depth of field” on the weak signal of change by collecting views from multiple perspectives, eg, multiple cultural viewpoints. This ensures that the original perception of the change is not merely an artifact of a cultural filter (and by “culture” I mean organisational as well as ethnic cultures). Other validation strategies also emerge from specific observational and scientific disciplines, of course; but these represent a general beginning.
See Hines, Andy, “Applying Integral Futures to Environmental Scanning," Futures Research Quarterly , Winter 2003, pp. 49-62.
Andy Hines has presented a useful overview of the work of Slaughter, Inayatullah, and Voros in his review of their articles and monographs in On the Horizon: Hines, Andy. “Integral futures: breadth plus depth equals foresight with insight.” Source: On The Horizon - The Strategic Planning Resource for Education Professionals , Volume 12, N umber 3, 2004 , pp. 123-127(5). Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited For articles on these approaches, see the following: Slaughter, Richard. “A New Framework for Environmental Scanning,” Foresight, Vol. 1 No. 5, October 1999; available online as a monograph in the Reading Room at Integral World: go to http://www.integralworld.net/, click on “Reflection and Debate” in the left-hand navbar, then choose “Reading Room”. Click on “Slaughter” in the alphabetical list of authors to access three of Richard Slaughter’s essays on integral futures and applied foresight and scanning. Inayatullah, Sohail. "Causal Layered Analysis: poststructuralism as method,” available online at http://www.metafuture.org/Articles/CausalLayeredAnalysis.htm, or … “ C ausal Layered Analysis: Unveiling and Transforming the Future ,” in J.C. Glenn and T.J. Gordon, eds. Futures Research Methodology, version 2.0. Washington, D.C.: AC/UNU Millennium Project. You can also order a book describing CLA and offering case studies: http://www.metafuture.org/Books/causal_layered_analysis_reader.htm. A description of the methodology can be found at http://www. scenariosforsustainability . org/recipes/cla .html Voros, Joseph, ed. Reframing Environmental Scanning: A Reader on the Art of Scanning the Environment. Australian Foresight Institute Monograph Series 2003, No. 4. Available online at: http://www. swin . edu . au/afi/research/integral_futures . htm .
Here’s another tool for improving our analysis of scanning hits. 4 layers – arbitrary number, but useful. Another way to think of the levels is: 1: Events: surface of the future – but also social constructions. 2: Motives (forces/ trends/ drivers / etc) 3: Values (expectations/ hopes/ worldview) 4: Instinct (e.g.prejudice as inherited belief) Deeper layers successively less accessible.
Define: eg, social values and attitudes; culture; scientific models; economic systems; religions; politics and public policy. Relate: eg, demographics; family and lifestyle groups; work and economy; habitat and ecosystems; business models and practices; government; education. Connect: eg, media; music; information technology; visual arts; language; and space. Create: eg, engineering; manufacturing; wealth; innovation processes; life sciences; materials sciences; and nanotechnology. Consume: eg, energy; consumer goods; food and agriculture; house and home; entertainment and leisure; healthcare; and natural resources. From joint presentation to the World Future Society World Conference, Chicago 2005.
http://www.adammathes.com/academic/computer-mediated-communication/folksonomies.html http://www.peterme.com/archives/000444.html Folksonomy is a neologism for a practice of collaborative categorization using simple tags. This feature has begun appearing in a variety of social software. At present, the best examples of online folksonomies are social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, a bookmark sharing site, Flickr, for photo sharing, 43 Things, for goal sharing, and Tagsurf, for tag-based discussions. (from wikipedia.org) TagCloud is an automated Folksonomy tool. Essentially, TagCloud searches any number of RSS feeds you specify, extracts keywords from the content and lists them according to prevalence within the RSS feeds. Clicking on the tag's link will display a list of all the article abstracts associated with that keyword.
Thank you for your interest. Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in training or workshops on horizon scanning in particular, or in integrated foresight overall.